Page 119 of Whisper of Nightmares

His hand lowers. “Am I going to like this?”

“Perhaps. We’ll see if it’s successful.” When Ash starts to stand, Euphemia pulls him back down. “If my theory is right, we might as well stay on the ground.”

He snorts as if to suggest he doesn’t like it already. But he settles over her anyway, ready to shield her again.

“Ready,” he says.

“Maybe we should talk about my father,” Euphemia says, testing the waters. When nothing rumbles, she swallows the thickness in her throat and continues. “We were very close, he and I. He taught me everything I know about running a tavern and brewing ale.”

Ash snorts again. His voice is warm as he says, “I didn’t know you knew how to do either of those things.”

Euphemia shrugs. “Well, between running for our lives and running from our lives, I guess I haven’t had a chance to tell you much about myself.”

His weight shifts as Ash leans closer. “Tell me everything.”

And so she does.

Euphemia tells him about her life in Nottinghamshire. About her sisters. Her mother. The Saint’s Hearth and all the colorful townsfolk who stop by day after day. She starts with the stories that bring her happiness: playing in the meadow as children, helping with a bountiful autumn harvest, making her first brew.

Ash listens to every word.

The ground does not shake once.

Then she guides the conversation to the story she’s been leading up to.

With shame heating her chest, she tells him about the boy she thought she loved. About a late-night gathering in a meadow. A daughter too eager. Too curious. And a father too doting for his own good.

“He came to the meadow looking for me,” Euphemia says. “And he found me just as the nightmare appeared. I was walking toward it. I wanted to pet it. I’d never seen such a creature before and it seemed like a miracle sent from God just for me.”

Ash reaches across her and wipes the tears from her eyes.

Euphemia leans into his hand. Briefly.

“He jumped between us to save me,” she says, the ground already starting to rumbles. Through the tears, through the agony of reliving this moment again, Euphemia forces herself to continue. She looks down at her hands. “You see, he was only there that night because of me.”

The ground shudders beneath them.

“He died saving me.”

It bucks beneath them, the stone cracking under the strain.

“It was all my fault.”

Stones rupture from the walls. They fly across the room, narrowly missing them. Which is fortunate because Ash doesn’t seem to notice. He’s hunkered over her, rigid where he was perched, but his eyes have gone distant. Hollow. The blue irises sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness within the skull. Until small flames appear.

“No,” Euphemia breathes, confusion in the word. “Wait. That’s not…”

The flames burn brighter, as if they’re rising into place.

The earth rocks and bucks. Debris spills from the ceiling, skittering across the floor.

The dream is coming apart. It’s splintering at all ends.

Any moment now, she’ll be ripped from this place.

But what will she find when she returns? Who will she find?

“Ash?” she says through the roaring, quaking grumbles of the earth.